


A Cinder-Eleanor Story

by worldturtling



Series: Lost in Fairyland [1]
Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Fractured Fairy Tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 14:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14673240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/worldturtling/pseuds/worldturtling
Summary: Michael meets Eleanor under some very odd circumstances. A take on a fairytale au, some anachronisms may apply





	A Cinder-Eleanor Story

The party was, overall, unremarkable. He notes it down in his journal for Janet to file in the library later.

It was unremarkable, and notable for this. It was unremarkable in the way that made Michael’s skin crawl, in ways that made him want to be Somewhere Else Very Fast.

Every part of the decoration, every person he met, every face lining the palace walls, they were scrupulously forgettable. Every conversation sounded perfectly conversational, syllables and details getting lost in the over all idea of  _sound_. Even the food was tainted by this. He knew he had practiced the art of chewing on something, and it had tasted like food should, but of  _what,_  he had no idea.

The biggest tragedy had been that the drink, in fact, had only giving him the  _idea_ of drinking, with none of the  _benefits_  of it to help him cope with all the categorized items previously listed and forgotten.

And then there was the girl with blue eyes and strange footwear. A crowd had parted around her, empty faces that should have features staring blankly at her. A crowd of faceless bodies moving for the prince to dance with a girl.

The prince. He shoves down a cold wave of dread. That was something not right. Even the prince had looked wrong, felt wrong down to the core, even though he couldn’t remember anything apart from one detail. He could remember the prince’s teeth. They were white. They glistened. And he had the dawning suspicion they were only glistening for the girl.

The girl.

The girl currently hitting at a runner’s pace down a flight of ridiculous marble steps Michael thinks only loosely graspedthe idea of being steps.

She trips, which he’d expect from imposter steps. A light glare flashes in his eye, a shard of glass in the shape of a heel. She yells a loud, “ _Fuck_.”

At least he remembers hearing that.

He grips his emergency iron in his hand and squints.

She has a face.

It’s staring with dismay at a coach.

Michael looks at the coach, and then sees what she probably sees, shifting in and out of phases: An ordinary sized pickle.

He could ride away right now with none the wise. He would be unaffected by anything here. He could leave this situation as it stands and let it sort itself out.

He lets out a high pitched whistle.

Sharp blue eyes look over. He waves his iron stoker. She squints.

“I can give you a ride home if you’d like. You’re welcome to take the pickle though.”

She seems to have a moment of weighing her options, but they both hear steps coming down the “stairs” and see the “Prince”.

She flips her foot over and tosses the other shard of glass attached to it behind her, inadvertently hitting one of the guards, and proceeds to sprint away from her pickle. He reaches out to help her up as she comes closer, and sees the briefest flicker of uncertainty as she looks up into his face. Her eyes are wide, her lips are stained with magic paint, and, gripping the iron bar, he can see her dress for what it is: dull fluorescent pink rags draped artfully so. He corrects his gaze back up from wandering. He has no idea how she ended up in the center of fairy political madness, and Michael would only incur wrath from plucking a human prey out from faeland crazytown. He studies her face, and maybe she’s studying his, as it comprehends the sea of uncertainty it’s entered, by a series of events known only to her and the ones coming behind her.

It’s only an eighth of a second before she cracks down on her mask, (and Michael knows a mask when he sees one), to make it one of royal certainty. She takes his hand as he pulls her up next to him. Her own hand is warm and small in his palm as he grips it.

“Hit it, man.” She says without preamble, slipping her hand from his to fluff her skirts around her. “And if this whole getup also turns into pickle juice or some other gross things, you better not perv.”

It does, in a matter of minutes, collapse into rags. Michael had prepared for this, removing his jacket as they got on the way for the inevitable wardrobe malfunction.

“Name’s Michael by the way. I’m an archaeologist.”

Her shoulders get lost in his jacket. Michael idly thinks some of Janet’s clothing might fit her.

“Name’s Eleanor, don’t call me Elle unless you like not breathing. I’d ask what an arch-whatever is but I don’t plan to stick around long enough to care.” Michael shrugs, and his horses keep at their running pace as he asks conversationally,

“Been in cahoots with fairies long?”

After a long beat of silence, she responds, “What do you know?”

Michael slows the horses down, feeling they’re a safe enough distance to no longer be sensed by whatever was going on at that place, whatever it was. He shares his story, the faces, the food.

“Even the booze didn’t work!” Eleanor echoes him enthusiastically. “God, what did I get into. I knew I should never trust nice old ladies waving sticks in your garden, man. Strangers don’t just  _give_  you things out of nowhere. Ugh, I just wanted to tell my stupid step sisters to shove off and maybe drink a margarita or two, I didn’t actually want  _fairies_.”

“And it looks like they were courting you to be a bride of some sort.”

Eleanor’s small face scrunches up in piqued horror.

“I need like, five bottles of tequila. You got tequila wherever you live?”

“I have several centuries aged wine?” Eleanor deliberates on this.

“Your place it is.”

Michael stares at her.

“You know, I wasn’t…that wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to pick you up.” He says awkwardly, a flush building in his face even as he notes the brightness in her eyes, the angled touch of her cheeks as she delivers him a smug,  _smug_ smile. 

“And yet you did.”


End file.
